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Finders Keepers in the Arctic

October 01, 2007

Robert Miller, professor of law, weighed in on Russia’s contested claim to land below the Arctic Sea in an August Los Angeles Times column, employing his expertise on the history of the Doctrine of Discovery and Native American land rights. Miller charts the discovery doctrine’s role in land-rights disputes from the 15th century to this most recent manifestation, miles below the North Pole.

Climate change has increased international interest in unclaimed natural resources and lands at the bottom of the ocean: “A new race to explore, conquer and acquire another ‘new world’ is on,” Miller writes.